The Brock Lesnar Problem, Yet Again

It’s official: the only remaining member of WWE’s god tier is returning to UFC (again) to fight Jon Jones. He’s still going to fulfill contractual obligations through Wrestlemania 34, but we’ve already seen what a Lesnar match looks like when he’s too focused on UFC to consider caring.

It looks like his match against Dean Ambrose at Wrestlemania 32, which somehow managed to be the worst match on the card of one of the worst Wrestlemanias of all time.

From Lesnar’s point of view, it makes perfect sense. Why go all-out and risk hurting yourself while preparing for a real fight?

Unfortunately, from every single person who isn’t Brock Lesnar’s view, it just looks like a performer putting out a trash product. (Which it is.) In addition, every recurrence of this situation is essentially WWE admitting that UFC is on a higher tier of legitimacy, which is true if you look at WWE as a combat sport – which I don’t, because it’s not a sport – but is a major part of the problem of pretty much everybody but Lesnar looking like a low-rent chump every time they step in the ring.

Fool me once with the Mark Hunt fight, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. This is the clearest indication yet that WWE needs to start weaning themselves off their Lesnar dependency and start investing elsewhere. And the argument that Lesnar is their only major draw, while likely true, is also circular; Lesnar is their only major draw because he’s the only person who gets treated like a star because he’s the only major draw.

So here we are: whine, whine, whine, with no solution. (Basically the Wrestling Internet Lord’s Prayer.) Luckily, an opportunity for a solution is coming up fast.

Obviously, the solution is at Summerslam. And there are three ways to go about it. Have anybody else win the fatal 4-way title match. That’s it. Keeping the belt on Lesnar too much longer both prolongs the boredom and runs the risk of WWE changing plans through the fall and winter until he makes it to the Jones fight with the title, which is a disaster waiting to happen.

Strowman can wait a little while, because his whole schtick can support itself without the title for the time being. Roman isn’t an awful choice, but it wouldn’t be especially well-received. So I’m with, if the rumors are to be believed, Paul Heyman, who’s apparently lobbying backstage for Samoa Joe to win the title in Lesnar’s absence. He’s a dominant character who survived a loss to Lesnar already and can cut a better promo than his archetype would suggest. Joe wins, Roman, Strowman, and maybe a wildcard contender feud on and off, and someone takes it from him at Wrestlemania.